Farewell

After 5 ½ years and more than 300 public affairs columns, this will be my last article for roanoke.com. The Roanoke Times’ online service is moving to a more interactive “blog” format and the type of short essay that I write doesn’t fit the company’s new operating strategy.

As a person who constantly talks about societal/organizational change and transformation, the shift in strategy is understandable and makes good business sense. Most major media outlets are now incorporating blogs in their operations. For instance, Judy Woodruff’s daily CNN News broadcast now reserves 10 minutes for an interactive blog on topics of interest to viewers.

I will miss writing this column. The Roanoke Times provided me with a unique opportunity to inform the educated public on cutting-edge academic inquiry in the areas of law, economics, management and public policy. As a public intellectual, I clearly fit the definition offered by Judge Richard Posner in a recent book on those who split time between academic teaching/research and contributing to the public discourse: “They are people who make their expressions assessable to the public; comment on current controversies or offer general reflections on the health of society, are opinionated and judgmental, and are controversialists with a tendency to take extreme positions.”

Mind you, I never intended my writings to be controversial or extreme, but these characteristics are like beauty -- their definition resides in the eye of the beholder.

What I have always done in my professional writing is point out, in the words of Harvard Business School Professor Chris Argyris, the gap between a society’s or organization’s “espoused values and actual practices.”

Yet, the objective was not to identify hypocrisy but rather to provide an intellectual framework for remedying these dysfunctional gaps in both the public policymaking process and organizational policies.

The success of this column was predicated on both my writing and the willingness of my editor, Jim Ellison, to publish the column without editorial changes. Even when I really “pushed the envelope” on controversial topics, Jim never censored my writings. There have been innumerable occasions when readers would tell me that they “really enjoyed the column but were surprised it was published.” Believe me, I was often just as surprised. Jim Ellison deserves a lot of credit for making this column as success.

And, in my humble opinion, the column has been very successful. I often do Google searches to see who (and how) the columns are being used. These searches reveal that many university professors use the articles as required readings in their course syllabuses and political/social activists list them on their Web site. College students contact me regularly to say that a particular column has been the catalyst for research in an academic area.

A former student, currently working on her master’s degree in public administration, has cited particular columns in all of her graduate research papers. Political writers read the column and discuss them on sites like the Virginia Pundits Watch. A colleague at roanoke.com is editing a book on Virginia Politics and will use several of the public management columns in the forthcoming publication.

The column has also fueled my interest in public intellectuals and their influence on American society. Public intellectualism in a democratic society allows citizens to become well-informed about civic issues, thereby enhancing the evolution of an enlightened citizenry. Consequently, I have been working on a book manuscript on the emergence of a new group of public intellectuals (in addition to a manuscript on the topic of organizational change) for the past several months. I’ve learned a lot over the past five years on how Public Intellectuals shape the civic discourse that occurs in the public sphere.

The most ironic thing about writing a weekly public qffairs column is that you never know how it will be received. After hundreds of columns, it is not hard to identify the two that generated the most positive feedback. In both cases, I was very surprised.

The “White Flight/Black Indifference” (May 24, 2004) truly resonated with white and black parents whose children attend, or have withdrawn from, the Roanoke City Public Schools. Acts of violence have been the reason for the controversy. I received telephone calls, e-mails, and was even stopped several times in public by residents who wanted to thank me for writing this column. Community activists and educators from throughout the country also contacted me about this article.

The other column, “College Football Needs a Playoff” (Jan. 10, 2005) captured the attention of football fans nationwide. I now have a new ‘best friend” named Ron in Southern California because of this article. I am also very popular in Utah where the University of Utah had an undefeated season but still would not have been considered for the national championship under either the current system or a proposed “plus” format. This column can be found on numerous Web sites that advocate a college playoff system.

Folks, its has been a true blessing to have the opportunity and freedom to offer my perspectives on American social, political, economic and cultural life. It is an opportunity that few academics ever have. I will forever remain grateful that The Roanoke Times provided me with this profound professional and social experience.

The newspaper will maintain an archive of all of my columns; thus, they will remain accessible to those who are interested. That’s sort of like being syndicated on Nick @ Night where reruns of popular old television shows are presented to reinforce the reality that even in a world of constant change, there are anchors of stability. Hopefully, my old columns similarly will retain their significance for years to come.

Again, thanks for your support. It’s been a great run!